Wonderful shot, splendid colors, terrific car. Too bad about a few key missing parts, though. Is this 1965 Olds 98 Holiday Sports Sedan shot and posted at the Cohort by Colin being parted out, or awaiting parts? I’d hate to have to make the guess.

Let’s take in its better side. These big and brawny Olds sedans, especially the 98, was such a symbol of America’s affluent middle class at the time. One didn’t need to be a banker, doctor or attorney to drive one of these. Several of these could be seen in the jammed parking lot Sunday mornings at Immaculate Conception in Towson. One of them belonged to a classmate, whose dad worked for the county, and I was perpetually jealous. Why couldn’t my dad buy one, who was an actual doctor?

I’m not talking about the very luxurious 98 Luxury Sedan that tried to be a DeVille. Just a basic Holiday Sports Sedan, regardless of its dorky name. “Holiday?” Ok, I could sort of get that. But “Sport”? For a big, wallowing barge like this? The only sports this Olds ever partook in was some hanky-panky on its big wide seats.

And just what was the price of entry to 98-land? $4,273, or $33,044, adjusted to 2015 dollars. That included the big 425 ci.in. Super Rocket V8 with 360 hp, backed by the superb new THM 400 transmission. Standard; no three-on-the-trees on 98s. And standard power steering and brakes. And even a standard electric clock and courtesy lights! But anything more was…more.

No, those slanted turn signals are not how they looked when Bill Mitchell signed off on them. This bruiser has taken a few licks, but I bet the Super Rocket will still fire up. And make that distinctive Olds exhaust chat when given the spurs.

That script is so 1965. Kinda’ dorky, actually.

For some reason, that script reminded me of McDonalds; maybe the “N” in Ninety eight looks like the twin arches, with part of one cut off. Or I thought maybe McDonalds used that script too. Not quite, but close. And of course the family is riding in a big, long four-door hardtop, like this 98.

Undoubtedly this 98 spent a bit of time in McDonald’s parking lots in its day. Will it ever again?

26 Comments

When Gramps immigrated to Maryland with grandma in the mid-1960s they bought Saabs and continued to do so for decades.

That Olds still looks nice and I hope it does not get scrapped, but I see no license plates. The script does look quirky and neat, but having been born in the 1980s I can only look at it in retrospect.

This car makes me think of a conversation I recently had with my 78 year old mother. She’s a car buff and can name virtually every car her family had growing up, but the years are often a bit jumbled. Anyway, my mom insists that Olds was higher on the Sloan ladder than Buick. Obviously all the literature proves that officially, the opposite was true. But I wonder if cars like this, as well as their predecessors were considered more luxurious and stylish than their Buick counterparts by conservative, anti-Cadillac folks….

Your mother had an interesting view. However, I could make that case in that the 60s was an odd time where Buick’s engines were always substantially smaller in displacement than were Oldsmobiles. The Skylark was offering that 300 V8 when the Cutlass V8 was the 330. Also most of the way through the 50s the Olds V8 displaced more also. And even when the Buick engine was bigger, the difference was marginal at most.

I wonder if it was a regional thing. My part of the midwest was crawling with Oldsmobiles while Buicks were much less common. Olds seemed to have more of a youth vibe when I was young, at least in my view.

“Anyway, my mom insists that Olds was higher on the Sloan ladder than Buick.”

My late father would say the same thing; despite being a good provider, he also had a habit of believing what he wanted to believe in order to stroke his own ego. We still say, “That’s how it was in ‘Dad-land.'”

I also believe that davis’ comment has something to do with this misperception; in the ’60s through the ’80s, Cadillac-Olds dealership pairings were also common in the part of the South in which I grew up. Perhaps this also comes from the fact that Cadillac and Olds were the first two divisions to use Hydra-Matic, and also were the first two divisions to introduce similar OHV V8s (and within a few weeks of each other, no less).

Nonetheless, at certain times the price difference between a Ninety-Eight and an Electra 225 was so narrow that a buyer could practically make up the total by digging in the seat cushions of his or her trade in, and gathering up the loose change.

That pairing wasn’t common in only the South. It was also common around here, in south-central Pennsylvania.

Prior to World War II, Buick was definitely higher on the Sloan brand ladder than Oldsmobile. Olds had nothing comparable to the huge Buick Limited.

Immediately prior to the war, Buick offered limited-production, custom-body cars produced by Brunn. Cadillac shut down the joint venture by complaining to top GM management. They were providing too much direct competition to Cadillac. I doubt that Oldsmobile would have even tried to offer such a vehicle in those days. It simply didn’t have that level of prestige.

After the war, Oldsmobile was boosted by the Rocket V-8, which gave it a more youthful image. By the 1970s, most people viewed Buick and Oldsmobile as roughly equivalent in standing.

The main difference was that Buicks were more likely to be bought by older, well-to-do individuals, while Oldsmobile had more of a youth image, thanks to the Cutlass Supreme, 442 and various Hurst Oldsmobiles. The Buick muscle cars never really made much headway with the public.

A note of interest now that the Pre war Limiteds are on my mind is:, Of the five main 5 GM divisions, Buick and Cadillac were the only divisions to get a “D” body. Chevrolet was the only division that never had a “C” body. Only the “B” and FWD “J” platforms were share by all 5!

Buick and Oldsmobile sorta were neck and neck if you take the Sloan ladder as price/prestige only. Oldsmobile seemed to appeal to the guy who bought the first Color TV on the block. or the latest HI FI gear and stoçks. The Buick guy would buy high end furniture and bonds,The Cadillac owner would buy furs, jewelry and art. It’s a subtle difference now likely lost.

Very interesting take on the brand positioning. Today, this would be called “attitudinal” targeting, and it is more about mindset than price points. I think when GM divisions were more clearly ruled by the general managers and their teams, these subtle differences in brand imagery were emphasized and specifically encouraged.

A modern analogy would be Audi, BMW, Mercedes (I know they are competitors from different manufacturers, but they are each targeting buyers in the same price bands). Audi is clinical, accomplished and almost boring. BMW is more aggressive, expressive, though the brand has arguably lost its credibility as a driving machine. Mercedes is the classic “gold standard” emphasizing the halo of the 3-pointed star. The demographics of these buyers are similar (income, zip code, etc.), but the psychographic profiles (attitudes, aspirations) are different, just as it was in the 1960s.

The 88 and 98 did a really strange dance over the years, gyrating between too similar and way far apart. After being a bit hard to tell apart in 61-62, the 65-66 went Full Cadillac compared to the 88s with their full hips and open wheels.

I was never a great fan of the 88 of 1965-66 but that 98 hits my GM sweet-spot. When I was growing up, there was a guy in my mother’s circle of friends. He was single, in his 30s, and one of the tightest men with a dollar I ever knew. He liked luxurious cars but always bought them used. He had one of these until he traded it on a 69 or 70 model around 1973 or so.

Sadly I’d guess this one is being parted out–probably for a convertible.

This class of car is interesting to me as the prototypical “really nice” family car: not a Cadillac, but a clear cut above the “regular” Medium Standards. Peak years for these cars would have been the mid-1960s, with the trend kicking off post WWII and pretty much ending by the late 1970s.

My parents bought into the approach for years, first with a base Electra Hardtop in ’67, and then a series of Olds Ninety-Eights in the 1970s with the lowest trim level available. The longer wheelbase and bigger back seat were big selling points for our family. Since my mother refused to drive a wagon, my Pop sought out the biggest possible sedan for our family of five, leading to the GM C-Bodies. My parents wanted a “premium” car, but weren’t seeking the “almost-a-Cadillac” vibe.

My parents were loyal buyers of Oldsmobile Delta 88s in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Ninety-Eight was the car they would have bought if they didn’t have to worry about putting two children through college. It was a step up from the 88, but it wasn’t viewed as pretentious.

Even if my father had been able to afford one, he never would have bought a Cadillac, as, to him, people who did so were just trying to “show off.” But he would have considered a Ninety-Eight.

I spent considerable time in the mildly re-trimmed 1966 version of this car. While it was the base “Town Sedan” trim, it was still the embodiment of ’60s luxury with its fender skirts, incredibly long rear deck / huge trunk, and an early “brougham” level interior. I would describe the base interior a better executed top-of-the line Chevrolet Caprice.

In addition to the mighty 430 and the THM400, what this car had over the Caprice was a real difference in size with its 126 inch wheelbase vs. the Chevy’s 119 inches. Those extra inches were no illusion ahead of the cowl, but instead created a limousine like rear seat area.

Along with the massive rear seat, and the simple addition of two options – a radio and air-conditioning, these cars were the cruisers you wanted for family vacations and the lifestyle of the middle class.

They were to the ’60s what the full-size crew cab pick-up is to the 20 teens. Like the modern trucks, nothing really sporty about them, and sometimes a handful too much car in many daily circumstances. But, also like today’s trucks, desired by many that could afford them and more, as well as many more that found them a bit outside their budget.

GM had a real lock on this market from about 1963 through 1984. With their ability to build a truly long wheelbase car in this price class, the C body Olds and Buick routinely outsold their closest Mercury and Chrysler competitors by multiples of volume.

I think my mother’s thoughts about the position of Oldsmobile just below Cadillac may have started one of her Grandmother’s cars: All mom will say about it is that it was an Olds 98 with the famous art deco world and stars steering wheel center. My guess is that it was a 1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 with the OHV V-8 engine and Hydramatic, and that despite the Roadmaster’s Dynaflow and Portholes (which were very aspirational as far as I understand), the V8/Hydramatic combination similar to Cadillac, and the shared C-body contributed to her future views on Olds vs Buick.

Years ago, in the mid-1980s, we had a family friend who had a ’71 Ford LTD, which she loved. One day she woke up, went outside to go to work and discovered that someone had stolen, the driver-side door off of her car. The police came, dusted for fingerprint, but nothing ever came of it. Her insurance company paid for a door off of a similar car from a junkyard and had it painted to match her car, however, the interior color didn’t match and they couldn’t find one that did.

Broken-hearted, she sold the car and bought a Ford Tempo as its replacement.

There were at one point 4 there. This one, a white one, a gold one, and a black one. Slowly, they began losing parts and eventually disappeared. This one was the last one to leave 🙁 That parking lot is home to an ever-changing landscape of abandoned cars and trucks of all vintages.